† As measured from Auckland, NZ on a typical broadband connection. Other locations in Australasia may vary depending on proximity to our infrastructure in Sydney, AU. A decisecond is one-tenth of a second.

Uptime monitoring (our engineers are alerted as soon as your site goes down)

Encrypted offsite archiving to cloud

Automatic WSOD resolution (coming soon!)

Built-in Slack notifications (coming soon!)

PHP

PHP-FPM is configured to run using the static process managing mode, meaning it spawns a fixed number of child processes. This is the optimal configuration, where each Medieval container instance is fully isolated and have a fixed RAM allocation. The PHP workers are ready to process incoming requests almost instantly.

Plan

Available RAM

memory_limit

PHP workers

Keep

512 MB

96 MB

2

Stronghold

768 MB

128 MB

2

Fortress

1 GB

128 MB

4

Zend OPcache

Imagemagick

APCu

PHP Sessions, non-blocking - Memcached

For a complete list of installed PHP modules, please contact us.

Database

Your database instance is situated on a separate server (from the one where your hosting instance resides) for optimal query performance.

Data communication between your web instance and your database instance is via 1 Gigabit private networking between servers. As backend WordPress performance (the admin area) relies heavily on database performance, the connection between website and database is as fast as it can ever be.

Storage

This means read/write performance remains high, and is not impacted by network attached storage implementations, although these are used elsewhere in our infrastructure.

Backups

Everything needed to rebuild your website in case of a catastrophic event is transferred to cloud storage and stockpiled securely for a rolling 30 day period.

Full (weekly) and incremental (daily) backup schedules for WordPress files

Daily backup schedules for database contents

Offsite enterprise cloud storage

Files are encrypted before leaving our network

Encryption method

We use the Advanced Encryption Standard with a 256-bit key (AES256). The correct passphrase is required to unlock the archive.

Database contents

Databases are backed up daily. For highly trafficked websites and ecommerce stores it is highly probable that data will change more often (new orders). So you may want a more regular backup. To this end we recommend to our customers to choose our Fortress plan as it will backup your database contents much more frequently (every 3 hours between 8am and 10pm NZST).

Data retrieval and website recovery

If your website ceases functioning and it is not something that Medieval had caused, then you would be able to get the website structurally sound again provided that you have your data backed up. Please see our recovery page.

Caching

Caching is storing anything like a database request, or a page request, something that is likely to be used again. These objects are stored temporarily in or on a much quicker medium - so that it can be accessed over and over again (as long as that data doesn't change). This means we don't need to go to the original source all the time for the same piece of data.

We utilise varying degrees of caching throughout our infrastructure to reduce the amount of time it takes to load or look up something that is requested quite frequently.

Talk to us about caching. Depending on the status of the site (development/production), we can advise you on the best solution.

NGINX FAST-CGI Microcaching - Woocommerce compatible

PHP opcode caching

Memcached Object Cache Backend

APCu Object Cache Backend

Which performance plugin should I use?

Medieval recommends that you do not use any performance plugin that "caches" your content as our servers already do most of that work for you. Using these could degrade performance.

However having said that, there are some cool plugins that create static versions of your content and adopting these is up to you to decide.

Also with HTTP/2 enabled, you no longer need to merge your scripts anymore. These micro-optimisations are not required and may even hurt your website performance.

Questions?

Do I have 'root' access?

No. Our service is a strictly a managed WordPress service, so such access to the container image or the host server is not possible. We lock things down pretty tight. However you will always have unrestricted access to your WordPress backend administration panel.

Do you restrict WordPress in any way?

We only restrict modifications to the wp-config.php file which contains your database username and password, amongst other system variables. We also disable direct file editing inside WordPress define('DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT',true). As for everything else you have unfettered access. You also retain full administrator privilege too.

Do you offer FTP/SFTP access?

Yes. SFTP accounts are available upon request. These are usually issued on a temporary basis.

Can I access my WordPress database remotely?

Not normally due to strict security precautions, however if you absolutely must have the ability to make direct edits then we can grant you access. You must use your own database tool for making queries, eg Sequel Pro.

Do I have access to raw web-server logs?

Yes, these are all stored on the local filesystem, in a folder that is below the publicly accessible webroot folder. These are automatically compressed and rotated daily. In order to access them, you'll need SFTP access.

Is WP_DEBUG enabled?

Yes, all WordPress errors are logged to /wp-content/debug.log by default. Showing these errors on the frontend to your visitors however, is disabled. The debug.log is rotated often, and as part of our consultancy services we can work with you to eliminate the errors recorded in this log. When a plugin isn't working right or to troubleshoot PHP compatibility issues, this is a great place to start looking.

You can have WP_DEBUG disabled at anytime.

Can I enable WordPress multisite?

No. We do not support multisite. Ever.

Multisite is for a network of sites. Some people seem to think that simply because they can use multisite that they should use it.

We've had experience with multisite in the past and we think it is silly.

Multisite works best when you have a network of sites that share the same user base. Multisite is great for sharing your user ID between sites, nothing else. Other than that it makes it so much more difficult to maintain, administer, believe us we've been there, done that.

If you really need multisite, you're actually looking for a solution outside the scope of what we offer.

If I wanted to change the PHP version, how fast could this be done?

As soon as you let us know, we can have your WordPress installation running on your new choice within 15 minutes.

What happens if my website goes down?

Your website could go down for any number of reasons. Either something on our end causes your website to fail, or something you did, like install a dodgy plugin. In any case, our engineers are alerted if your website goes down.

Your website can also go down if our security systems detect any anomalies with your WordPress core files. If this happens we'll definity be in touch.

Help! my website is hacked! Can you help?

We have good experience in removing infections from WordPress sites.

In most cases, we'll roll back your website to an earlier backup and compare that to the hacked version in order to understand what is different. After speaking with you we can perform the most appropriate action depending on database revisions, uploads, frequency of edits etc.

Usually within 2 hours, we've established the cause and provided a fix. If it takes longer than this we may charge a nominal fee for the extra time.

If you are moving a hacked site over to us to fix (from another provider), we charge per quarter hour to diagnose and troubleshoot (minimum 1 hour).

Developers

For developers looking to use our platform to build a great WordPress site, we make it very easy.

Simply contact us. We can discuss what you need in terms of PHP version, caching options, etc etc. We provide you with a temporary URL so you can be up and running with a default WordPress installation in minutes. It's also protected with basic authentication so only you and your clients will have access (and prevents Google from indexing your content).

How do we make the website go live?

Simply give us the domain name you want to use for the live site, and we'll make all the changes required to the database. As long as the domain name is pointing to the right IP address, the site will be live from that point on. No need to move any files.

What if I want my client to pay the bills?

No problem, we'll send invoices to anyone. They just need to join our family. We also understand the relationship between developer and client, so they can pay the bills, and you can retain control to the website. You'll also be able to make executive decisions on their behalf.

What if I want to pay the bills and invoice my client separately?

Again, no problem. As long as your client understands that any issues must be addressed with you first. We offer discounts if you host a number of sites with us.